Puppy Playground

So, today was the big day.  The day we were all waiting for.  The day that Rudy was allowed inside a dog park.

And his daddy took him while I was at work.  It seems fitting somehow.  You know, man's best friend and all... And he did great.  At first there were about 10 dogs, and by the time that they left there were about 25 dogs.  And he wanted to meet every single person and dog in the park.  Such a social butterfly.  His best pal was this big old pitt bull named Princess.  She showed him the ropes.

He's so much like his daddy.  So unlike me!

It went so well, that we decided we would take him to the park tonight.  Of course, though, there were storm clouds looming, so we didn't know if it would be too stormy or not.  But we drove out to the park anyway to see if it was going to let up or not.  It was lightly raining when we got there.  And there were a few dogs out.

So we did get out after a few minutes.  As we got out, we passed a few dogs that were leaving, but there were still 2 dogs in the park.  One was four year old beagle german shepard mix - although she looked to have no german shepard in her.  The other was a big old lab rottweiler mix - about 130 pounds!  He was the boss, but he just laid there because he didn't need to assert anything.

After a bit, Lady got restless or something and she started barking at the big old chief.  He just laid there.  So then Rudy tried to play with her, but she got him upside down and was over him and he did not like that at all.  He is a little whiney guy, so he made it sound worse than it was.  At one point, the big old dog got up and intervened.  He told Lady to back off.  It worked for just a bit.  And then she started dominating Rudy.  She was a closet dominatrix, I guess.  And Rudy is an out in the open submissive - except for when it comes to us.  So this went on for a bit.  The owners were trying to apologize, but Lady really hadn't done anything inappropriate, but they were just barking a lot, so it sounded worse than it was, I think.

So, we took him to run around the park.  There are some obstacles, so we tried to get him to go over them or thru them.  There was a low ramp that he had no problem going across, and there was like a tire jump that he went in also.  It wasn't nearly as exciting as the dog park this morning, but maybe a more valuable lesson was learned on this visit?

I wish I could say that he hasn't jumped on us or bit us or barked since we've been back from the park.
Oh, how I wish I could say that.  But I will just hope for being able to say it one day.  Hope is good.